7
1“When I would have healed Israel,
Then the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered,
And the wickedness of Samaria.
For ⚓they have committed fraud;
A thief comes in;
A band of robbers takes spoil outside.
2They do not consider in their hearts
That⚓I remember all their wickedness;
Now their own deeds have surrounded them;
They are before My face.
3They make a ⚓king glad with their wickedness,
And princes ⚓with their lies.
4“They⚓are all adulterers.
Like an oven heated by a baker—
He ceases stirring the fire after kneading the dough,
Until it is leavened.
5In the day of our king
Princes have made him sick, inflamed with ⚓wine;
He stretched out his hand with scoffers.
6They prepare their heart like an oven,
While they lie in wait;
Their baker sleeps all night;
In the morning it burns like a flaming fire.
7They are all hot, like an oven,
And have devoured their judges;
All their kings have fallen.
⚓None among them calls upon Me.
8“Ephraim ⚓has mixed himself among the peoples;
Ephraim is a cake unturned.
9⚓Aliens have devoured his strength,
But he does not know it;
Yes, gray hairs are here and there on him,
Yet he does not know it.
10And the ⚓pride of Israel testifies to his face,
But ⚓they do not return to the Lord their God,
Nor seek Him for all this.
Futile Reliance on the Nations
11“Ephraim⚓ also is like a silly dove, without sense—
⚓They call to Egypt,
They go to ⚓Assyria.
12Wherever they go, I will ⚓spread My net on them;
I will bring them down like birds of the air;
I will chastise them
⚓According to what their congregation has heard.
13“Woe to them, for they have fled from Me!
Destruction to them,
Because they have transgressed against Me!
Though ⚓I redeemed them,
Yet they have spoken lies against Me.
14⚓They did not cry out to Me with their heart
When they wailed upon their beds.
“They assemble together for grain and new ⚓wine,
They rebel against Me;
15Though I disciplined and strengthened their arms,
Yet they devise evil against Me;
16They return, but not to the Most High;
⚓They are like a treacherous bow.
Their princes shall fall by the sword
For the ⚓cursings of their tongue.
This shall be their derision ⚓in the land of Egypt.